Various types of small screen displays can be found on products such as cellular telephones, personal digital assistants (PDAs), mobile computers and imagers. Increasingly, users must navigate small screen displays to do web browsing with a mobile phone or photo browsing using a PDA.
Small touch screens are popular to support interaction with applications running on portable devices, such as PDAs and mobile phones. Small touch screens also are finding their way into home products such as the Honeywell TH8321U1006 thermostat, the Honeywell 6271V security panel, and various personal health monitoring devices. They have been used for years in parcel delivery, retail warehouse operations, and refinery field operations.
Navigation schemes using zooming and panning controls or by a fish-eye viewer are known. However, these controls are inconvenient or are inefficient to use them in some situations. For example, it is hard to use fish-eye navigation with a touch screen. It is also hard to zoom and pan graphics with a mouse or a touch screen. Navigation with a stylus on a small screen is perhaps even more difficult for the user.
There is thus a continuing need for alternative approaches to control navigating large and small scale graphics that is natural and easier to use.
It would also be desirable to be able to use such approaches in navigating large scale graphics such as maps or building floor plans.